Letters & Emails

The Age

Monday February 18, 2008

TAX CUTS

Reshape that promise for the good of the poor

WHILE I can understand the Federal Government's reluctance to dishonour its promise of tax cuts so soon after the election, rising inflation means that this is no longer a good idea. One way of honouring the promise while reducing its inflationary impact is to skew the tax cuts towards individuals and families on low incomes. Many of these people receive government-funded income support, often in combination with low-paid part-time or casual work, and many struggle to make ends meet. Even those whose income is too high to receive welfare payments are often struggling financially and have a high need of government-funded welfare services.

Distributing tax cuts primarily to the lower income brackets would reduce dependence on welfare payments and services and would have long-term health benefits, both of which reduce demand on government spending. It would direct spending towards basic needs such as food and accommodation, rather than to luxury items. In a time of rising interest rates, it would reduce the number of first-home buyers who are unable to meet mortgage payments and, most significantly, it would be a step towards slowing the ever-expanding inequality in a country we like to think of as egalitarian.

Richard Williams, Northcote

Do the right thing

WE KNOW that Kevin Rudd promised $31 billion in tax cuts, and we know that breaking election promises is frowned upon. However, we also know that those tax cuts will be rapidly absorbed by interest rate rises, and will also lead to further rate rises in the near future.

I challenge Australians to demand that these tax cuts be diverted to fight three of the greatest scourges facing our nation: inflation, climate change and the shameful state of indigenous health, education and housing.

We have shown in the past week that we are capable of feelings that we hitherto chose not to give voice to. Let us show that we are worthy of that remarkable demonstration of statesmanship carried out on our behalf last Wednesday.

Let us empower the Prime Minister to break his promise on this occasion, and to do what we all know is the right thing to do.

John Leonard, Bacchus Marsh

Integrity and inflation

THE Rudd Government's determination to proceed with promised tax cuts is an expression of the integrity we've cried for from our political leaders for a long time. However, the inflationary concerns of economists should not go unheeded. Here's one suggestion. Consult the nation: use talkback radio, internet polls and whatever practical means are available to seek the mind of the electors. Show us the arguments, sums and projections. Maybe we could all take a "wage freeze".

Lance Lawton, Werribee

It's time . . . to get tough

THAT was a moving speech. Now for the hard stuff. Instead of $31 billion in tax cuts, use the money to set up a fund to compensate indigenous people and to improve Aboriginal health, education and housing. Recognise prior ownership through a treaty. Cut the $60 billion in middle-class and business welfare that is now in the tax system to help further capitalise the fund. I'm sure big business would agree, as would all those well-off superannuants and future superannuants.

It was no accident that the day after the euphoria of the apology, Labor began talking about wage restraint. Labor's strategy is becoming clearer. It will use social policy as a cover for and distraction from attacks on living standards.

John Passant, Kambah, ACT

Once were 'Jeff-ed',

now 'Brumbied'

AFTER an era of being "Jeff-ed", Victorians sought refuge by changing government. But their rescuers have turned feral and people's concerns about projects such as bay dredging and the de-sal giant, and the salaries of teachers and nurses, are brushed aside. We are being "Brumbied".

My own suburb is in fear of its wishes going under the heel. The problem is the Montrose Quarry, at the foot of Mount Dandenong. The owner, Boral, is trying again to dig another big hole. This would bring quarrying closer to housing and schools, all looking forward to the present quarry's exhaustion in fewer than 10 years. New works would disturb a water table, putting the ecosystem of a nearby creek at risk.

Three thousand people have signed a petition and the Yarra Ranges Council has rejected Boral's application. But the Planning Minister is considering calling it in. If he adheres to the Brumby doctrine of commerce before public sentiment, quarrying would be extended by 12 years, subjecting people to noise, blasting and harmful dust until 2030.

John Brumby says rejecting growth would turn us into a backwater, like Adelaide. Funny that. An ad last weekend called for staff at a place offering "exciting growth, great lifestyle and affordable living". The place? South Australia. The advertiser? Boral.

John Stevens, Montrose

Money before results

I APPLAUD the federal and state governments' goals to improve education outcomes for Koori students. Unfortunately, the Victorian Education Minister, Bronwyn Pike, ("New goals for Koori students", The Age, 16/2) is being unrealistic if she thinks she can just add individual education plans for Koori students to our school teachers' already bulging workloads.

This is not something that can occur as part of a "culture change" within a school; this needs money, to reduce class sizes and employ more teachers, to employ more administrative support for those teachers, to pay for professional development and time release for teachers and support staff, to buy relevant literacy and numeracy resources for teachers to use with Koori children in the classroom.

Government goals are useless unless funding to create the environment for successful achievement is provided at the same time.

Margaret Pekin, Thornbury

The emotive view . . .

TRACEE Hutchison of Rosebud swims in the bay all year round but apparently has failed to notice a large object, "all metal and machinery", in the shipping channel (Opinion, 16/1). Until last week, when one was loitering and she found it so menacing that it took her breath away. Like the others, it will pass on, and the "filthy plume" - sand and mud from the bay bottom - will settle. The ludicrously emotive language reaches a peak when Tracee wonders if the "men in suits" have sent it to her back yard because she has previously written on the subject.

Tracee lives on the peninsula because she works in a vibrant, albeit sprawling, city covering hundreds of square kilometres of previously pristine bushland. Unlike the plume, Tracee's neighbourhood is a permanent scar on the bay environs, but she is not volunteering it for restoration to pre-settlement conditions.

Philip Shehan, Brunswick

. . . is welcomed

THANK you so much, Tracee Hutchison, for your passionate columns on behalf of those of us who love Port Phillip Bay and swim in it daily.

You have expressed our horror and grief at the impact that dredging is already having on you and the residents of Rosebud, and will soon have on all Melburnians who use our lovely bay and its beaches. Each day when I swim in the clear turquoise water, I wonder if it will be my last swim, perhaps forever. I weep with frustration and rage that our elected representatives could even contemplate destroying this wonderful way of life, which makes Melbourne one of the world's most liveable cities. They have deceived us and sold us out to international shipping companies for container-loads of yet more consumer goods we don't need and more horrendous truck-choked traffic nightmares.

Jill Thompson, Aspendale

What's in a name? And a title?

LESLIE Cannold (Opinion, 15/2) says: "Some pro-lifers did come clean (Australia's own John Fleming, who in Australian debates on abortion tends to describe himself as Dr Fleming from the Southern Cross Bioethics Institute, added that he was a Catholic priest and president of Campion College, linked with Christendom College, whose mission is to make Christ's teachings the law of the land). But others simply refused."

I do not hide my identity and always wear priestly clothes. I have a PhD from Griffith University and am entitled to be called Dr Fleming. Campion College, of which I am president, is not linked to Christendom College, but is an independent college whose mentor university is the University of Sydney. I am no longer director of the Southern Cross Bioethics Institute.

The claim that our mission is to make Christ's teachings the law of the land is the grossest of defamations. Setting up a theocracy would in fact be contrary to Catholic faith and doctrine.

Will Dr Cannold and her organisation, under her proposals, be required to reveal links with abortion providers and their advocates? Would she consider making an argument on its merits rather than smearing the reputations of others?

John Fleming, president, Campion College Australia, Old Toongabbie, NSW

More than words

I REMEMBER the day man walked on the moon, and I will remember the day Australia said sorry. As much as I wanted to witness this historical moment, I did not watch it.

Instead, national apology in hand, I went to the place where the local Bunarong people camped and read it aloud. Not all of it, just the bits that said sorry. Nothing happened. There were no smiles, no handshakes or tears, only the gentle sounds of the bush and the distant hum of suburbia. The men, women and children who once camped there were long gone.

If, like me, you missed the opportunity to say sorry, it is not too late. There are many small and positive ways that individuals can contribute to a national apology. Perhaps learning about Aborigines in your local area, their culture and customs, planting an indigenous tree or extending a hand in friendship next time your paths meet.

Forgiveness requires a giant leap in faith that cannot be achieved by words alone.

Kerry Millman, Frankston

That 'other' stolen generation

NOW that the brouhaha over the apology to the Aboriginal "stolen generations" is subsiding, spare a thought for Australia's other "stolen generations". There are many of us adoptees who, for decades, have watched in silence, wondering if this country will ever acknowledge the damage inflicted on children born in the 1950s and '60s.

It was a time when pregnant teenage girls were sent in shameful secrecy to other states to give birth. Many of those babies grew into children who, feeling isolated and alienated, learnt far too soon words such as "bastard" and "illegitimate".

Words alone cannot describe the dire and sometimes tragic consequences that "forced" adoption has had on our lives.

Will we too receive a prime ministerial apology and compensation? The truth is that "stealing" children, regardless of race, is a crime against human and natural rights. This wrongdoing, committed by a well-meaning but ignorant society, cannot be undone and no amount of money or possessions or apologies could compensate any of us for our profound losses.

We suffer ongoing, all-pervasive loneliness that others can never completely fathom.

The only panacea for the grief and emotional suffering is to live in the present. The past, at best, can inform future generations. But there is no fulfilment or happiness to be found there . . . only futility.

Roslyn Bourne, South Melbourne

Go diesel, and save

GORDON Drennan (Letters, 16/2) is correct to say an electric car powered by coal-fired electricity can produce as much carbon dioxide as a petrol car, but this comparison is too simplistic. It is equally accurate to say that an efficient electric car can produce a lot less CO2 than an inefficient petrol car and vice versa. There is no need to wait decades for nuclear power plants in order to run all those electric cars. The simplest solution available now to substantially reduce Australia's CO2 emissions from cars is to switch the bulk of the fleet to diesel.

Unfortunately diesel cars cost thousands more than their petrol siblings. In the long term, demand will fix this, but in the short term subsidies on the fuel or the car would go a long way. Diesel is a non-renewable resource, like coal and uranium, but, unlike these two, it can be produced from vegetable oil and, in the longer term, from agricultural and forest waste.

Martin Strandgard, research fellow, University of Melbourne, Richmond

Nuclear no answer

WRONG, Gordon Drennan. Nuclear power is not the answer to our prayers for carbon-free electricity generation. In fact, mining and processing uranium ores, fuel enrichment and building nuclear power plants produce enormous quantities of greenhouse gas. This aspect of nuclear power is conveniently ignored by proponents.

There are many other negatives, of course - not least the long-term storage required for the most toxic, dangerous waste known to humankind.

We're just going to have to consider using a range of genuinely carbon-free alternatives for our electricity production, becoming more energy-efficient and, yes, reduce consumption. That's what true sustainability entails. We have to wean ourselves off a reliance on the public relations spinners in the nuclear and other carbon-producing electricity generators, and accept that the alternatives are possible.

Helen Lewers, Napoleons

Public servants on public transport

YOUR article on government car fleets ("Spring Street backs gas guzzlers in fleet extension", The Age, 15/2) poses several questions. We, the grateful taxpayers, provide 108 gas-guzzlers for our MPs. How many other cars do we provide for the public service?

Why do we provide any cars at all? If the Government is serious about traffic congestion and greenhouse gases, surely no cars should be provided at public expense. MPs and public servants could be given a voucher for public transport, and if they wished to travel by car, they could do so at their own expense, like the rest of us.

Peter Valder, Toorak

A lot of hullabaloo

I CAN'T help thinking that if you buy a fancy flat in a tall building and you can see the Sidney Myer Music Bowl from the balcony, you could be pretty darn sure that you will be able to hear what goes on there ("Irate residents get loud", The Age, 15/2). And why would someone suggest that the citizens of Flemington or Ascot Vale would welcome the music objected to by the residents in St Kilda Road?

When I moved into my house beside a railway line, guess what? I could hear the trains.

Rosalind Poole, Abbotsford